up, and it was some time before my husband could get the whole house opened and the things sent away down to Calcutta. Meanwhile I was enjoying myself very much, having got over my first feelings of loneliness, and made friends with everyone in the place, more or less. Shillong is a lovely little station nestling away amongst the Khasia Hills, in the midst of pine woods, and abounding in waterfalls and mountain-torrents. The climate is delicious all the year round, and the riding and driving as good, if not better, than any hill-station in India. Life there was very pleasant, not a superabundance of gaiety, but quite enough to be enjoyable. I have spent some very happy days there with some good friends, many of whom, alas! I can never hope to see again; and the memories that come to me of Shillong and my sojourn there are tinged with sadness and regret, even though those days were good and pleasant while they lasted. Things have changed there now, that is, as far as the comings and goings of men change, but the hills remain the same, and the face of Nature will not alter. Her streams will whisper to the rocks and flowers of all that has been and that is to be. So runs the world. Where others lived and loved, sorrowed and died, two hundred years ago, we are living now, and when our day is over and done there will be others to take our place, until a time comes when there shall be no more change, neither sorrow nor death, and the former things shall have passed away for ever. CHAPTER VIII. A terrible experience—A Thoppa and a journey in it—Its difficulties and dangers—The Lushais—Arrive at Sylhet—Find the Coolies have levanted—A pony journey ends disastrously—A night walk—Accident to Mr. A⸺.—Arrive at a teahouse—Not a shadowy dinner. I left Shillong early in November, 1889, travelling part of the way towards Manipur quite alone, and had a terrible experience too. I had arranged to journey a distance of thirty-eight miles in one day. I sent one of my horses on the day before, and started in a ‘Khasia Thoppa’ down the last hill of the range upon which Shillong is situated, which brings you down into the plain of Sylhet. A Thoppa is a very curious mode of locomotion. It is a long cane basket, with a seat in the middle, from which hangs a small board to rest your feet upon. Over your head is a covered top made of cane, covered with a cloth. You sit in this basket and a man carries you on his back, supporting some of the weight by tying a strap woven of cane on to the back of the Thoppa, which he puts over his forehead. The Khasias, luckily, are very strong men, but they think it necessary always to begin by informing you that you are much too heavy to be lifted by any single individual, unless that said individual be compensated at the end of the journey with double pay.